“You can feel that?”
“The bond doesn’t lie.”
He snorts. “No, it doesn’t. But I’ve learned when you set your mind to something, little dragon, it’s in my best interest as your mate not to get in your way.”
“Wise man.”
He smirks. “Wise is not what I’m feeling at the moment.”
“Nevertheless, the map. Please.” I point at the moon-washed clearing. In Tenebris, day and night are separated by the rise and fall of the moon, not the sun. It’s late in the day, which means we’re running out of light. Without light, there can be no shadows, and although Damien can still control the darkness, I won’t be able to see the map he creates clearly. “Hurry, we don’t have much time before nightfall.”
He spreads his hands as Ariadne did, and Stygarde Castle forms to the south, Blackspire Palace to the northin Willowgulch, Aendor and Dimhollow to the east, Mount Damocles and Zephrine to the west, the Borderlands and dark forest slicing across the middle. I place myself outside of Bolvet inside the Zephrine region, our actual location, and dangle the carved stag. Around and around it goes, the circle it carves growing wider and then oblong until it stops at an angle, the animal pointing southeast, toward a section of the Borderlands. I move until it’s dangling straight down. “Where is this?”
“Looks like right outside of Carver Village on the edge of the Borderlands.”
“Then they haven’t reached New Stygarde yet. They’re in Lady Odette’s territory?”
“If the magic is accurate, yes.”
“The pendulum isn’t swinging. Maybe they’ve stopped for the night. We have a shot.” I call Phantom, reaching down my bond to ask them a question. Damien startles when the dragon appears.
“We are hours from that location, hours we’d have to travel through dangerous and well-guarded terrain on rabble beasts. The children will not be able to shadoweave, and neither can you.”
I stare into Phantom’s beautiful blue eye and run my hand along their flank. “I don’t need the rabble beasts.”
Damien looks between Phantom and me. “You can’t be serious, Eloise. You’ve never tried riding Phantom. You have no idea what will happen.”
“How much different can they be from Romulus?”
Damien pinches the bridge of his nose like I’ve given him an intense headache. But when he speaks to me, he uses his hands. Damien might be from Tenebris, but at the moment, he could pass for full-blooded Italian. “Phantom is a deaddragon animated by your magic. Carrying your weight will be a drain on your magic. Even if you’re able to reach the children, you might not have enough power left to save them or carry them back. And if Phantom falls, you fall with them.”
“I—” I really want to tell him where to shove it, but damn if he doesn’t have a point. “Honestly, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We can do it,” Phantom says in Grams’s voice. “We’re stronger now. We’ve eaten and rested. Let us help the children.” They lie down before me and offer their leg as a ramp to climb onto their back.
I glance back at Damien, and our eyes lock. We are partners, equals. I don’t need to ask his permission, and I know if I go, he’ll forgive me. But the trust we share is sacred. I trust his opinion. I trust his advice. He knows this world far better than I do, and he knows my power and limitations almost as well as I do. I hold his gaze and allow the unasked question to swirl between us, the unspoken conversation to play out in the tightness in his jaw and the roll of my shoulder, the lift of my chin.
“We go now,” he says.
“We?”
“Yes, little bird. I’m going with you.”
“We can’t both—” I gesture at Phantom.
“I won’t ride. I’ll shadoweave. Believe me, I can keep up.” He starts for the tree line, the shadows making up the map drawing in like spiderwebs caught in sticky fingers, following their master and blending into the edges of his form. He casts a wicked grin over his shoulder at me. “Can you?”
A laugh barks up my throat. “Game on, lover.” I run upPhantom’s leg, a feat that would have been impossible for my former human self, and straddle the dragon’s back, just in front of their wings. Their scales are slippery, and I have to grab one of the bony projections that rise from their neck to keep myself from falling off.
“This isn’t going to work,” I say to them. “It’s too slippery.”
“A little magic should do the trick. Your great-great-uncle Alfred has just the thing. Do us a solid and remove yourself for one moment.”
With a simple shift of my weight, I slip off the beast and land on my feet.
“Now, picture a saddle and speak very clearly ‘Vehi Fugere’ then snap your fingers thrice.”
“Vehi Fugere!” I say quickly, adding in the three snaps as required. A saddle appears on my dragon. With a glance in the direction Damien went, I leap on, rest my feet in the stirrups, and hook my fingers through one of three straps that runs across the saddle. I’m relieved to see there’s space for the children, the straps made to go over their legs and hold them in place. As always, Phantom has thought of everything. I have no need of reins. My bond with Phantom means all I need to do is think something, and they’ll do it.
